Be an Expert in your field.

Here is a copy of a post I made in the SOCOM Sales blog. I though this should be reposted since many of the readers of this site can get some benifit from it also.

I am a huge fan of Seth Godin. Seth is a marketing genius that has written many books that have opened the eyes of executives that have been in the field for years and gathered a large following of aspiring marketeers.

Recently, I was looking though Seth Godin’s blog and saw a post that caught my eye. Since I had recently found a great article that I posted mentioning eBay as a solid avenue for companies and new business to make money, I was interested to see what Seth had to say on the issue. His post was refreshing and made a great point that I want to highlight to the readers.

Instead of running a rolling garage sale, you need to become an expert. Someone who is seen as knowing what they’re talking about, and someone who can reach out to possible buyers instead of waiting for them to find you.

This is at the heart of all entrepreneurs success. You can’t wait for the business to come to you, you need to find a way to become an expert, even if just perceived, in your niche. This will help your business grow exponentially. You do this by setting a deep footprint of your knowledge in the field and your desire to help educate the customer.

I started this blog as a way to help me collect sales, marketing and business information for myself and other people in my position to learn from. Now with a steady readership, I feel compelled to continue to find more tips and information. I do not claim to be an expert, but I guess I have some status with my peers that makes them come back for more.

In Seth’s blog, he also mentions using multiple platforms for your company image. This is exactly what I was talking about when I wrote Marketing 2.0 parts 1 and 2 and said that companies are falling behind the curve of the industry if they are not keeping a corporate blog and using other social media tools to their advantage.

Like a mentioned earlier, I have a lot of repeat viewers, that could be because they have me set as a bookmark, have added me to their RSS feed by clicking the link at the top corner of the page. Some are people that I have listed as contacts in my FaceBook profile or through Twitter and click on the links when I post new entries.

It always comes down to human nature. We’d rather buy from a friend.